Following our call to members for ideas and assistance on 7 February 2020, the Australian Childcare Alliance (ACA) NSW thanks members for their contributions.

On 12 January 2020, the following have been conveyed to the NSW Department of Education as our members' initial ideas:

1. Extending the power of the NSW Minister for Education so that when s/he declares the temporary closures of schools (in particular primary schools) in response to anticipated local emergencies, that such declarations will automatically be interpreted that the appropriate authorities have declared local emergencies so that early childhood education and care services can then temporarily close their services and rely on their business insurances to come into effect. Unfortunately, when Minister Mitchell began declaring schools to be closed from 9 November 2019 onwards, there were far too many services who were in a state of confusion because their local authorities (eg police, fire, ambulance, Rural Fire Service) had not declared local emergencies in their areas even though neighbouring schools had already been evacuated.
2. Recognising that many families have been affected by the fires, services’ staff too and their own families from the same communities are likely to also be negatively affected as well. Hence, with the primary focus being to ensure that services have sufficient and able staff to educate and care for children, that a possible coordinated/centralised service by the NSW Department of Education be set up such that either temporary staff can be provided to those affected services, or that unaffected services can be temporarily exchanged with those in affected services.
3. Possible review of fire safety as well as emergency and evacuation policies and procedures if they failed in early childhood education and care services affected by the fires.
4. Leveraging the operational goodwill and financial generosity of early childhood education and care services unaffected by the fires to contribute towards funds sanctioned by the NSW Government for the purposes of their distribution towards those early childhood education and care services who have been affected by the fires. There appears to be significant interest in unaffected services wanting to know how they can support those services who have been affected by the fires.

ACA NSW members have also offered the following for the Federal Government's consideration:

1. To provide administrative relief as well as avoidance of confusion, that the Federal Government could recognise local emergencies as another reason why non-attendances of children (including “last day” and “first day”) would not penalise services who continue to operate and offer support/refuge for other families and their children.
2. To extend ACCS and/or specific financial relief programs that would provide assistance and relief to services affected by the fires in order to support families and staff who have been affected by the fires.
3. To provide financial support for families’ fees and staff wages.

 ACA NSW members can still contribute their ideas and offers of assistance via our feedback form.

PUBLISHED: 14 JANUARY 2020